2023 is going to be an incredibly exciting year
for the Mac.
We could be seeing anything from a 15-inch MacBook Air,
completely redesigned Mac Mini,
a three nanometer super powerful M3 Apple Silicon Chip,
and hopefully a redesigned Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
Now, as you guys know
I don't usually do leaks or rumor content.
In fact, I can count on one hand
the number of rumors videos I've made,
but I do want to talk about what actually makes sense
for Apple to release next year,
or even in November this year,
and what we have a really good chance of seeing.
Let's start with everyone's favorite product, the MacBook.
Now, already in the last 12 months
we've seen a ton of innovation and updates
the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros, the M2 MacBook Air,
and probably the most controversial MacBook in a while,
the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
So, what MacBook updates could we be seeing in 2023?
Well, let's start with an unlikely one, the notch.
Since its introduction in the iPhone 10 in 2017,
the notch has been a staple of iPhones ever since.
Last year, Apple decided to bring this design feature
across to the MacBook,
and when the M2 MacBook Air came out earlier this year
everyone quickly realized that it was here to stay.
Now, there's some people that don't mind it,
but a lot of people absolutely hate the notch.
Now, me personally, I don't really care,
but I'd also much rather prefer either no notch at all
or a slightly thicker top bezel instead.
On light backgrounds, the notch really does
stick out a lot and is very noticeable.
Fast forward a few months though,
and the iPhone 14 was released, and ta-da,
the notch is completely gone
and has been replaced with the Dynamic Island,
just a few months after Apple introduced
the now outdated notch to the M2 MacBook Air.
So what was originally a design choice by Apple
to have their MacBooks and iPhones
share the same notch and visual design,
now it's completely different.
So what's going to happen?
Well, I don't believe that Apple will implement
a Dynamic Island to the Mac,
despite some of the leaks and rumors
floating around out there.
I mean, there's already plenty of screen real estate
for notifications and other alerts.
Personally, I think Apple will keep the notch
on all MacBooks
until we see the next major redesign in three to five years.
And at that point, I do think the design will be changed,
and hopefully we'll finally get
some kind of super thin bezel design.
Now, before I get into the new M3 chips
we'll likely be seeing in 2023 MacBooks,
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Now, let's get back to the video.
Getting back to MacBooks,
Apple teased us with the M2 chip earlier this year,
and despite all the fancy buzzwords and marketing,
it's really just an M1 chip
that's been going to the gym regularly
and has put on a bit of muscle.
In real life workflows, we didn't see that much improvement.
And remember that any noticeable improvement came
at the cost of increased wattage and heat output,
which the chassis of the M2 MacBook Air
and even MacBook Pro often struggled to dissipate.
And this totally makes sense.
I mean, remember, the M2 is still
on a five nanometer process,
which Apple calls five nanometer plus.
It's essentially the same as M1,
and you've probably seen by now
all the three nanometer process rumors swirling around.
And while no one knows the exact date it will be released,
make no mistake, three nanometer is coming,
and it's coming soon.
Now, why is three nanometer important?
Well, nanometer size refers to the width
between transistors on a chip.
The smaller the number,
the more transistors can be squeezed onto a single chip,
making them more powerful
but also more challenging and costly to produce.
And partly because it's more challenging
and costly to produce,
right now, TSMC in Taiwan, who makes the majority
of Apple silicon chips for Apple, is struggling.
And it looks like they've delayed production
of the three nanometer process for several months.
Not to mention, the US recently placed
a ton of insanely restrictive sanctions on China,
which may have a knock-on effect
on TSMC's supply and manufacturing chains.
Check out my previous video on that subject
if you're interested.
Whatever happens, Apple is by far
TSMC's biggest and most loyal customer,
so they will prioritize Apple over all other companies,
and I'm confident we will see
brand new three nanometer Apple silicon next year.
But what kind of improvements will these new chips bring?
Well, allegedly, a 15% speed improvement
at the same power level as the current five nanometer chips
or a 30% reduction in power consumption
for comparative speeds.
So perhaps not a massive amount in terms of raw performance
but it does seem they will be extremely efficient,
which is great for a laptop.
That being said, personally, I don't want to see
upgraded 14 and 16-inch MacBooks any time soon,
despite what some of these leaks and rumors are saying.
I think Apple should hold off
until the end of 2023 at the earliest
as the M1 Pro and M1 Max are already really capable devices.
Same with the M2 MacBook Air.
I mean, I don't think we'll see any updates until 2024
which, again, makes total sense.
However, one MacBook I'd personally love to see
is a 15-inch MacBook Air.
I did a poll a few weeks ago
and almost 50% of you said Apple should make this product,
and I think there is a big market for it.
13-inch screens are simply far too small for many users,
and I think there's a significant group of people
who don't need the performance and premium features
of a 16-inch MacBook Pro,
but also want the larger screen size for productivity.
Remember that the old 15-inch MacBook Pros from the 2015 era
were some of the most loved MacBooks of all time,
despite their issues.
Now, Apple could make a 15-inch version of the Air
that is very thin and light,
but with an M2 or M3 chip, and maybe less ports
than the 14 or 16-inch MacBook Pro models
to cut down on price and size of the chassis.
A three nanometer chip and increased cooling capability
of a bigger chassis would also likely cut down
on a lot of the thermal issues we saw
with the M2 MacBook Air.
Sure, a 15-inch Air wouldn't be quite as portable
as the current 13-inch version,
but I certainly think if it's thin and light enough
it's more than worthy of the Air branding.
At the moment though, it's really up in the air, get it,
whether or not this product could come out.
There are rumors and there is a potential market for it,
but should Apple really be introducing another MacBook
to their lineup in the current global situation?
Maybe not.
And this brings me to my next point, the Mac Mini.
In my opinion, it's in big need of a refresh,
and I think Apple is going to do this in 2023.
The current design, lack of ports,
and M1 chip is aging fast.
And for those of you
that haven't been following this channel,
the Mac Mini is actually my favorite Apple Silicon Mac.
Sure, the Air is awesome,
and I love my M1 Max MacBook Pro,
but the tiny form factor, performance,
and extremely budget cost of the Mac Mini
is simply unbeatable.
Back in 2020, you could pay 699 bucks
and get the full performance of the M1 chip,
the most powerful Apple Silicon Mac at the time,
with no thermal throttling or fan noise.
And often this price was discounted in later months,
meaning you could pick up a brand new one
for around 550 bucks.
Now, I tried to build a budget PC around the same price
as the Mac Mini in 2021,
and I just couldn't get anywhere near the form factor
and performance of the Mac Mini.
Coming into 2023 though,
I think this would be the perfect Mac to upgrade.
Intel has really upped their game
with their entry level 13th gen CPUs,
and we're facing a potential recession,
the cost of living is skyrocketing,
and most people don't have a lot of cash to spend.
So what if you could pick up
a really powerful M2 or M3 Mac Mini
with way more performance than a MacBook Air
or even 13-inch MacBook Pro
because of no thermal throttling,
but for almost half the price?
That's a pretty enticing offer.
Personally, I think we'll see a minor change
to ports on the back with more thunderbolt ports
and possibly additional ports on the front,
similar to the Mac Studio.
The form factor itself won't change much though,
in my opinion, contrary to some of the leaks out there.
While a thinner chassis and Pro display XDR-sque grills
would look cool, remember that the Mac Mini
is often used in server farms,
and a new chassis would mean all the existing server racks
would need to be changed.
And finally, we get to the product I'm most curious to see,
a potential Apple Silicon Mac Pro.
Remember, Apple has completely moved away from Intel CPUs
in all of their Mac lineups as of 2021, except the Mac Pro.
It's still currently available for purchase
on the Apple website,
and I'd love to see the sales data for it
over the last 18 months,
because I doubt many people at all are buying it.
So it makes sense for Apple to finally rid themselves
of Intel completely and update it to Apple Silicon.
There's a couple of issues with this though,
and I'll touch on that later,
but the reason I'm so curious to see
what Apple does with this product is because, up until now,
the Apple silicon chips we've seen
have been mostly focused on efficiency
and not pure raw performance.
Almost all of the chips have been designed primarily
for portable laptops and not a beefy desktop system.
Sure, we had the M1 Ultra Max Studio,
but even then the emphasis still wasn't
really on pure performance.
It barely sipped 100 watts of power under full load
and it produced almost zero fan noise and heat.
This does make sense though, because despite it being
the most powerful Apple silicon chip currently available,
the M1 Ultra Mac Studio isn't really designed
for super intense workflows.
It's mainly for entry to mid-level professionals
or boutique agencies.
Anything above that is typically
where a Mac Pro would come in.
And early estimates of the power
of an Apple Silicon Mac Pro are insane,
with Mark Gurman saying
that he believes the Mac Pro will come
with up to 48 CPU cores and 152 GPU cores,
in some kind of M2 or M3 extreme chip.
But, like I said, there are issues.
In this price range and customer demographic,
Apple is competing with the finest offerings
from Nvidia, Intel, and AMD.
And just like the RTX 3080
absolutely destroyed the M1 Ultra in many areas
with its sheer power and optimizations,
like ray tracing and optics, the same can be said
for whatever Apple Silicon Mac Pro comes out.
Many workflows are still simply not optimized
to take advantage of powerful Apple Silicon.
So, in many cases, why bother buying it?
And this may be why Apple has held off on releasing it.
Maybe, at this time,
there's just not a large enough target market
who would be interested
in buying such a premium and expensive product
when the value proposition isn't there yet.
Regardless, Apple needs to upgrade the Mac Pro, and soon,
because it's now two years
since the first Apple Silicon Mac was released,
and they need to give Intel the final kick out the door,
whatever ends up happening or doesn't end up happening
because of supply chain, recession,
war, or inflation issues,
it's going to be very interesting to see
how the Mac evolves in 2023,
but I'm just some dude in a spare bedroom on the internet,
so let me know what you think
down in the comments section below.